Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Several Unsuck readers received a memo about two suspicious looking men filming in the Metro. Below is part of the memo:

The subjects were observed at the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station, Orange Line platform videotaping features of the station and operations of the train. Once aboard an Orange Line train to Vienna they videotaped how patrons oriented themselves within the metro rail car.The subjects were attempting to videotape inconspicuously, by holding the camera at their side, between their chest and waist. If you come into contact with these individuals, please stop and identify, and call the Metro Transit Police Department Communications Division at (202) 962-2121

Here's what Metro has to say about it:

The Metro Transit Police are following up on a report of suspicious behavior reported by a Metro rider last week. As part of the routine follow-up, Transit Police issued a notice to all of its officers to be on the lookout for two individuals who were observed videotaping in Metrorail stations and on trains.

The rider observed the men filming portions of the stations and trains, as well as riders at the L’Enfant Plaza Metrorail station platform and on an Orange Line train to Vienna last week. The men, according to the citizen report, were trying to be inconspicuous, holding the cameras at their sides. The rider was able to photograph the men who were videotaping and sent the photo to the Transit Police.

Based on the photograph and the information received by the citizen, the Transit Police have no reason to suspect the individuals in question about anything specific. The Metro Transit Police did, however, issue the “be on the lookout for” notice, a standard tactic used by police departments to share information with their officers. The notice advises officers to call the Metro Transit Police Communications or Criminal Investigation divisions if they see the individuals.

The Transit Police notice was meant for an internal audience only and was not intended to be a public notice. The incident was not meant to be elevated to a public alert level and was not meant to alarm anyone.

We applaud our customer’s efforts in bringing this matter to our attention and we encourage all customers to report anything suspicious to the Metro Transit Police Department.

We need YOU!

Our best posts are from you!

Over 700,000 of you take Metro every day. Whether it's a simple tweet from the front lines, a funny photo or story or something more substantial, tell us. Got an idea of something we should do? Let us know. More than half of this blog has been written by riders just like you.